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Oscars producer reveals how the Academy landed Ellen DeGeneres as host of next year's show

ellen degeneres 2013.jpg

Ellen DeGeneres arrives at the season 4 premiere of 'Arrested Development' in Los Angeles on April 29, 2013. Producers announced Friday, Aug. 2, that DeGeneres will return to host the Oscars on March 2, 2014. (Katy Winn / AP File)

When it was announced on Friday (Aug. 2) that New
Orleans-born actor and comic Ellen DeGeneres had been brought on to host the
Oscars, it not only was a surprise -- it also was a surprise that it was a
surprise. After all, Hollywood is a notoriously tough town in which to keep a secret,
but before DeGeneres'
Friday announcement via Twitter that she would be doing the duties, nary a
whisper had leaked about the Academy's courting of her as host.

Turns out, there was a good reason for that: It all came
together so quickly that there was hardly any time for the secret to be leaked.

After DeGeneres announced that she was taking the gig,
Oscars producer Neil Meron took to Twitter himself to reveal how it all went
down (using the hashtag #HowWeGotEllen) -- and in just 48 hours, no less.

According to those tweets, Meron and producing partner Craig
Zadan -- with whom he is producing March's 86th annual Academy
Awards -- met with Cheryl Boone Isaacs on
Wednesday (July 31), her first day as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Among their agenda items -- aside
from, presumably, congratulating her
on being named the first African-American to lead the organization -- was to sell her on the idea of DeGeneres as host. She loved the
idea.

She loved it so much, in fact, that Meron and Zadan got the
go-ahead from the Academy to offer the job to DeGeneres later that night. "On
Thursday," Meron wrote, "she called and said 'I'm in!'"

The decision was made to let
DeGeneres break the news the following morning on Twitter. "It was a whirlwind
48 hours," Meron wrote. "Exciting way to kick off this year's #Oscars
experience!"

When she takes the stage for the March
2 show, it will be DeGeneres' second time hosting the Oscars telecast.
She previously hosted in 2007, bringing in 39.9 million viewers -- which stood as the
strongest ratings for the annual telecast until last year's show, hosted by
Seth MacFarlane, drew 40.3 million viewers.